NetSuite Orientation: Customer Record – Communications Subtab

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Customer communications are vital to your company’s success. SCS Cloud teaches you how to use the Customer Record Communications Subtab in NetSuite.

Communication is the lifeblood of quality customer service. Words, of course, are the means by which you can understand your customer’s wishes and (hopefully) work to fulfill them. After all, as author Paul J. Meyer once stated, “Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.” However, in this age of texts, tweets, emails, voicemails, chats, and more, it can be difficult to keep your correspondence clean and coordinated. Communication is a powerful tool, but it must be used wisely; a single, well-worded email to a customer can resolve hours of support strife, but being bombarded with disorganized texts, emails, voicemails, and chats could ultimately cause a client to choose a competitor.

In order to match the pace of rapidly advancing communications technology and maintain the basic building blocks of outstanding customer service, you need to get your digital systems straight. A cloud-based business software suite like NetSuite offers eCommerce, PSA (Professional Services Automation), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) programs in one unified database, so your information is easily accessible and up to date. With NetSuite as the home base for your communications, you can ensure that your staff collaborates well and conveys the right message to your customers.

At SCS Cloud, our team of software experts strives to help all businesses benefit from the power of the cloud. To that end, we’ve put together a series of NetSuite Orientation guides, which give you the know-how you need to optimize your operations. In this next installment, we explain how to use NetSuite’s Customer Record Communications Subtab.

Why Communication is Key

“Communication” is, admittedly, often bandied about as a mere buzzword, but the truth is that it really does have a tangible effect on your enterprise. If you can’t effectively impart the value of your product, you won’t make a single sale; if you don’t follow up with your existing customers, you’ll never convert them again; if you won’t address clients’ concerns, they’ll take their business elsewhere; the list goes on and on.

As the​Houston Chronicle​points out​, “focusing on customer communication is important to the long-term success of any business,” since it can help you “understand what the customer truly needs,” “serve as a valuable reinforcement tool to solidify [a customer’s decision to] purchase,” “anticipate a customer’s need for change and make helpful suggestions.” These all provide immediate value to your business, helping you transform leads to customers, meet their

demands, and adjust to any changes. Furthermore, the, ​Houston Chronicle​notes: “Failure to communicate with customers for extended periods…can cause them to forget about you or make them think you no longer care about their business.” By “staying in touch” you can make sure you remain on your clients’ minds, so that when they need your services, they turn to you. In this way, consistent communication builds the future of your business.

What is the Customer Record Communications Subtab?

As with any other facet of your business, your communications must be ​organized​. You wouldn’t throw together an inventory at the last minute, make a change to payroll without consulting your accountants, or alter a product design on a whim. You should treat your communications with care​.

NetSuite’s Customer Record Communications Subtab allows you to do just that. Basically, this feature displays all the data you need to communicate with your customers and provides an interface with which you can do so in a streamlined, successful manner.

How to Use the Communications Subtab

Making the most of the customer record communications subtab is easy, as long as you know the right steps. Below, the SCS Cloud specialists have put together a how-to guide for you.

Log in to NetSuite.

Click the “Customers” button in blue tab, then following the dropdown menu to “Relationships,” then choosing “Customers” from the following dropdown menu. This will pull up a list of customers.

Click the “View” button next to name of the customer you’d like to open the communications subtab for. This will bring up the customer’s information.

In the lower blue bar, click the “Communication” button. This will bring up the communications panel, which has its own set of subtabs, including “Messages,” “Activities,” “Files,” and “User Notes.” Under these subtabs, you’ll see a list of communications sent either through NetSuite or logged in NetSuite with any contacts at the customer company. These communications are displayed chronologically and include the date, author, recipient, subject, communication type, whether or not files were attached, and whether not the communication was only sent to internal employees.

If you’d like to see more about a given communication, click the blue “View” button on to the left of the communication data. This will bring up a pop-up window displaying the contents of the message. The pop-up window also includes its own set of subtabs in a blue bar at the top of the window. These include “Recipients,” “Message,” (which will be automatically selected), “Attachments” and “Read Receipts.”

If you’d like to reply directly to the message you’ve opened in the pop-up window, click the white “Reply” button in the upper left. This will open a new email form and automatically selects the recipient. Click the “Message” tab to type your note. Click the “Attachments” tab to add a document template that will be auto-filled with this customer’s information using a merge function. If you’d like to add a file from your desktop, scroll down to the gray tab labeled “Attach File,” click the plus + button, click “Choose File,” and select the file you’d like to send from your computer. Once you’ve finished writing your message and attaching any relevant files, click the blue “Merge & Send” button in the upper left. This message will now appear as a sent message in the Communications Subtab.

If you’d like to compose and send a new message from the Communications Subtab, click the white “Email” button at the top of the list of messages. This will bring up the same pop-up window with the same functions as the “Reply” button.

To see all activities relating to a customer, click the “Activities” button in the light blue bar directly under the dark blue subtab bar in the center of the page. This will pull up a list of tasks, phone calls, and events pertinent to a particular customer.

If you want to add an activity to be completed in the future, click the “New Task,” “New Phone Call,” or “New Event” button above the list of activities. This will bring up a pop-up window where you can add all the relevant information about the activity, then click the blue “Save” button at the top or bottom of the pop-up window. This will save it to the “Activities” list. When you complete the activity, click the blue “Completed” button at the right side of the row, which will change the status of the activity from “Scheduled” to “Completed.”

If an activity has already occurred and you want to add it to the Communications Subtab for record-keeping, click “Log Task,” “Log Phone Call,” or “Log Event.” This pulls up a similar pop-up window where you can add all the relevant information about the activity, and once again, click the blue “Save” button at the top or bottom of the pop-up window. When you create an activity with the “Log” buttons, they are automatically set as “Completed.”

To add or view files to the Communications Subtab, click the “Files” button in the light blue bar. If you’d like to add a file that’s already stored in NetSuite’s database, click the downward-facing arrows in the “Attach Existing Files” tab to bring up a list of options and select one, then click the white “Attach” button. To add a new file, click the white “New File” button directly under the “Attach Existing Files” tab. This will pull up a pop-up window, where you can choose where to pull the file from and which folder on NetSuite to store it in, then click the white “Choose File” button to select the file you’d like to add. Finally, press the blue “Save” button in the upper left of the pop-up window.

To add miscellaneous information related to customer communications, click the “User Notes” button in the light blue bar next to the “Files” button. To add a new note, press the white “New Note” button in the light blue bar under the subtab, which will generate a pop-up window. Fill out the appropriate fields in the pop-up window (especially the note itself in the large “Memo” field) and click the blue “Save” button at the top left of the window. The note will then be displayed in the list under the subtab.

By mastering these functions in the Customer Record Communications Subtab, you can better manage every aspect of your customer relations, keeping your clients coming back and growing your business.

About us

SCS Cloud is a team of software experts with extensive experience in ERP, CRM, and Governance, Risk and Compliance. Our specialties includes a variety of software systems with a particular focus on Salesforce and NetSuite Implementation.